Website providers often collect data that describes usage and visitation patterns for their websites. For example, website providers often collect information about how a visitor navigates through their website. This information is often referred to as web analytics data. Such information can be extremely valuable in developing usage statistics for various purposes, including, for example, estimating server load, determining advertising rates, identifying areas of websites that are in need of redesign, and the like.
Web analytics data is often collected via logfile analysis or page tagging. Logfile analysis includes reading logfiles that store a web server's transactions. Page tagging uses executable code (e.g., a “web-bug”) embedded in the webpage to transmit information about the user and their website visit when the webpage is executed by the visitor's browser application. Web analytics data is often gathered and stored at a web analytics provider to generate a database of web analytics data. Web analytics data may be processed to generate various web analytics reports that can be used by a website administrator to assess and optimize their website. For example, a website provider may submit a query to a web analytics provider for a metric identifying what percentage of visitors to their website are making purchases on the website, and the web analytics provider may process the stored data to provide the corresponding metric.
A website provider will sometimes employ analytics data and associated metrics to provide content targeted to the anticipated audience. In some instances, a website provider will attempt to learn about profiles (e.g., demographics) of visitors, and provide corresponding content of that is expected to interest the visitor. For example, an advertisement for a sports drink may be provided on a webpage displayed to a user that has a history of visiting sports related websites. The more a site provider can learn and understands about a visitor's profile, the better the site provider can control the content delivered to website visitors, thereby improving the visitor's experience and improving the site's overall effectiveness. In some instances, site providers gather user profile information from the user directly (e.g., asking the user for profile information), from data gathered during user browser sessions (e.g., web analytics data), and so forth. Although these techniques provide information that can be useful in assessing user profiles and related decisions, certain limitations may still exist. For example, where the profile information is limited to a user's age and gender, decisions may be based on the limited information relating to the visitor's age and gender.
Accordingly, it may be useful to expand the techniques for gathering and correlating the information to increase the effectiveness of providing content to website visitors.